Friday, October 27, 2017

I will be at the Gathering of Authors event at the Texarkana, Arkansas, Convention Center on Oct 28, 2017! Come out and meet more than two dozen authors, enjoy snacks, and help us raise money for these two wonderful charities!

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Sometimes, I write bits of very short fiction (referred to a Flash Fiction). This is one such tale:

"Mirror, Mirror"

Abby sings “Hakuna Matata.” Something darts from the underbrush. Should I swerve? I hold my breath. Indecision thrusts the vehicle forward. On its haunches, it turns to me. The steering wheel wiggles against a small bump. “Thudathump” echoes from beneath. In the rearview, the small, furry grey squirrel lays in the road – tail raised stiffly in surrender.

“Did you kill him, Daddy?” Abby asks from the rear as our eyes meet in the mirror.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Rod Richards, who owns "The Title Wave" bookstore in Portland, Oregon, has reviewed thousands of books and has been posting reviews on readerman.us. Recently, he reviewed my debut collection of short stories, "All This Digging and other stories."

I wrote these stories while working on my Masters Degree many years ago. They were part of a larger project I was doing as part of my thesis. At that time, the loose collection was called "Unfinished Business," because I believe that all short stories are mere glimpses into a moment in time. We don't generally know what led us to the event detailed in the story nor do we often know what happens afterward. I also named it that because I had the start of a novel (then called "Summer of Seven" which later became "Summer Breaks") and knew that it was not even close to being finished.

Some of the stories begin and end with roughly the same sentence. I was trying to develop a series of stories that I dubbed "Circle of Life" tales. That is, the reader is taken on a small journey that essentially leads the reader right back to where s/he started.

For example, the collection's title piece, "All This Digging," starts off with:

"I hate all this digging," the old man said aloud to no one.

As the story unfolds, the reader is drawn into a strange, ultimately horrific, tale. As the old man finishes his work, the story ends with the opening line above.

As Rod says, each story shows, "the way people think in different situations. Some I don’t understand but I recognize them." That is the point of many of the short fiction that I write: get inside the protagonist's head, even if you don't understand what's in there. We often wonder what other people are thinking or what it would be like to be the proverbial fly on the wall. All too often, though, what we'd find would either scare us or confuse us.

Don't get me wrong, these are not horror stories (er, well, not all of them). But, I have found the line between laughter and fear is not always clearly defined.

Want to read the book? Click on "All This Digging" in the right column.

Thanks for stopping by!

*What does the bear picture have to do with anything!? Read the book to find out!

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Hey, everyone! Thanks for stopping by to see what I've been up to. Right now, I am working on a novel inspired by the baseball simulation called OOTP (Out of the Park). The story centers on two brothers from Chicago: John and Carter "Dingus" Bailey.

I let the game create everything in a fictional midwestern league: team names, player names, birthdates, cities of birth, etc. Then, I went through all the players and found all those with the same last name. After that, I looked to see if any of those had been born in the same city. Sure enough, the Bailey brothers were discovered.

Carter was born on April 26, 1980. John was born on September 06, 1990. At the start of the novel, Carter wears #14 and plays left field for the Oklahoma City Mad Ants. John wears #5 and plays Shortstop for the Omaha Pumas. We'll see where their careers, and their age differences, take them over the course of their ball-playing time.

The cool thing about the game is that you not only get stats, but you get fun News Items, such as injury reports that tell you how the player got injured (say, accidentally shoots himself in the foot - an actual in-game event, though it was not a Bailey boy who did it) and how long the player is expected to be out. The game also picks Players of the Week and hands out various other awards.

I chose to create an 8-team league because I wanted that small town feel. I'm sure there will be superstars on some teams and drama on others. Some of those players and events will have an impact on one Bailey brother or the other - or sometimes both, I'm sure.

I've never tried to write a novel this way before, so we'll see how it all pans out. Wish the boys luck!

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

In the Fall of 1987, students learned that Loretto Heights College in Denver, Colorado, was being sold to Regis College and subsequently to the Japanese University (or vice versa).

In any case, the Spring of 1988 was difficult for the students who had come to love attending the small, private Liberal Arts college. I took a creative writing class that semester under the leadership of Dr. Bob Johnson. He was, by far, one of the best writing profs I have ever had.

We had an assignment to write about the closing of the college. I don't know what ever happened to my paper, and I hate that I did not keep it. It talked of crumbling sandstone and broken hearts. It also spoke of what I saw of my future.

I wrote that I would ultimately graduate from some "nameless college." As life's irony would have it, not only did I not graduate from a nameless college, I graduated from a university with MY own name! Twice.

In 1990, I transferred from University of Colorado to Henderson State University. I had not planned to graduate from there. I was enrolled in order to help get my grades back in line after majoring in "socializing" at CU-Boulder.

I actually came to enjoy attending Henderson State, met the woman who amazingly agreed to marry me, and in the Spring of 1993 I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts - Mass Media Radio.

In the Summer of 2003 (or thereabouts), I walked out with my Master of Liberal Arts - English (or, listed as "General") degree from Henderson State University.

And now, our son attends that same university.

Not only did I *NOT* end up at some "nameless" university, but the university with my own name has proved to be one of the pivotal points over the course of my lifetime.